Transcript - General Petraeus Interview, Dec 13
The objective of providing the additional US and ISAF partner forces is of course to reverse the momentum of the Taliban given the security situation of the past few years has deteriorated...we’re doing hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure development. It’s the largest building boom in Afghanistan since Alexander (the Great) built Kandahar City. This has to be a comprehensive effort.
9:33- The fact is that 10 months ago or so now there was a recognition of by all the Pakistani leaders that the most pressing state to the very writ of Pakistani government was the external extremist threat. They’ve been conducting some quite impressive operation on the Pakistani Taliban, and against extremist syndicate elements. 11:09 They have conducted these operations with an impressive degree of skill. They have not cleared and left, they have cleared and are holding, and they’re endeavouring to build...and they even have an eye toward the ultimate transition. They’ve taken some significant losses from their leadership. Their leaders have very much led from the front. And extremists have fought back
The determination and the will remains quite impressive. Now, in the conduct of these operations they have also bumped into and confronted elements who have undermined the fight in Eastern Afghanistan in particular. Clearly over time it would be helpful if additional pressure could be put on the leaders of those elements. Pakistan has conducted operations over the years against these elements. It’s important to know what they have done over the past ten months, it is unique since 9/11 and I think we should recognizes their efforts.
‘AWAKENING’-TYPE APPROACH IN AFGHANISTAN?
14:46 There are actually some initiatives that have been launched in that regard. They’re under the acronym CDI...the community defense initiative. It essentially involves small special forces teams that have members who know the language, culture, and area, and basically live in the village with the people and seek to empower them to involve them and empower them in the maintenance of their own security. This is not quite the same as the Sons of Iraq, this is more of a village by village and valley by valley, because of the nature of the situation in Afghanistan.
16:16 [The Awakening strategy in Iraq] very slowly gathered momentum. By the time the surge was launched you had a handful of tribes come together, but there weren’t even the major guys. The major Sheikhs were sitting in Amman, telling every visiting American delegation they could solve the problem, which of course sitting there and doing it from Amman, not sitting in Anbar.
As the surge took place all of a sudden it took off. The conditions were right for it at the time. There was enormous frustration with Al Qaeda – the indiscriminate violence, the extremist ideology, and the repressive practices.
Afghanistan is different, it’s a valley by valley and village by village social structure. 19:50 It truly is a case of all counterinsurgency being local.
19:57 Is there potential for this? We think so. We have launched initiatives to test that proposition, just as there is exploration of these reintegration initiatives together with the Afghan government.
LS - 23:35 From what you understand, what has the campaign in Waziristan accomplished? Do you think the Taliban can be reduced to zero, or are they something we and Afghans will always have to live with?
22:45 In the campaign in eastern south Waziristan there clearly has been the killing capturing, and displacement of the extremist leaders and elements in that area. There are relationships among all these different groups. There is a nexus, as Secretary Gates has said.
23:50 Sometimes some are up, sometimes others. There is still some degree of a symbiotic relationship between the groups. The Taliban in both countries does represent...in certain cases, it plays on degrees of dissatisfaction in one way or another. It obviously plays on the...attraction to extremism by certain elements. There are always these kind of tendencies in any population. 25:20 You’re just trying to keep it to an absolute minimum. Some of it is in response that the government has not gained full legitimacy in the eyes of the people. They seem to be predatory rather than serving the people. That’s why you have to take a comprehensive approach.
You can’t kill and capture your way out of an insurgency. You do have to kill and capture some in an insurgency.
You have to get at the conditions for why you have fertile ground for extremism in the first place. A reason why there is so much aid going to Pakistan. The Kerry-Lugar bill is 1.5 billion per year for each of the next 5 years in various forms of economic assistance.
28:00 You have to identify who the irreconcilables are, remove them from the population, and try to maintain security in those areas once they’ve been cleared. That is essentially the concept. This is what we did in the urban areas of Iraq as well. Obviously, Afghanistan is not Iraq, there are enormous differences, but there are also similarities in how you go about security urban areas. You have to have a really detailed, nuanced, granular sense of a situation so you can recognize who the enemies are.
Q: In terms of delays of the election, how much of a complication is this for the withdrawal?
31:48 The only changes that will result from the shift of the election day are quite small and they will actually result in the departure a bit earlier. We may transition them earlier now so that the command and control structure is completely set a few months prior to the onset of the election so that in the last few months in support of the Iraqi security effort there won’t be major changes.
32:40 Other than that we don’t see any need for big adjustments. The plan we had is appropriate for the date on which the elections will be held. We’ll be able to stay on the glideslope as planned for the reduction from the current about 115,000 US soldiers on the ground to under 50,000 by the end of August next year. That also brings about a shift in our mission focus to which we will all be in the advise and assist mode. We think that’s doable as well.
The fact is that we have seen an over 90% reduction in levels of attacks, violent civilian deaths, and even high-profile attacks from the height of all those categories in 2007.
It was well over 200 attacks in 2007, over the past month it’s been less than 15 on average per day.
34:44 What Al Qaeda has done we think in Iraq – and there’s no question Al Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly reduced in its capability and capacity. The flow of foreign fighters from Syria has been reduced dramatically from say 110 per month at the height to less than 10 per month, mostly because of what’s happened to Al Qaeda in Iraq and because of what source countries to make it harder to fly on a one way ticket as a military age male to Damascus.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been reduced significantly and they know that. We’ve gone after their...media cells, their financing cells, their leadership cells, needless to say.
35:52 What they have decided to do we believe is literally just conduct a lower level of attacks day to day and periodically coordinate high profile attacks so that they get the press bounce out of that. We saw that on the 19th of August, the 25th of October, and again on the 8th December. It’s been every month and a half or so. And then you have the month of November, which had the lowest level on record of civilian deaths and security incidents, and high-profile attacks.
There has to be continue pressure on Al Qaeda and Sunni extremist elements, who are still present. We are working to support [Iraqi government,] but it is their forces that are conducting the operations. The same against the Shiite extremists... we still have residual elements present, who still receive arming, training, and in some cases direction from Iran.
38:07 It is fair for Iraqi officials to express concern for the presence of Saddamist groups who operate quite openly in Syria and make some pretty outrageous statements, calling for the overthrow of elected Iraqi government. That is a concern. And there is some degree of financing that makes its way from those elements to some of the Sunni extremist elements operating in Iraq.
[Different Sunni extremists groups are] sometimes in league and sometimes in competition.
ON MONEY/COSTS OF DEVELOPMENT IN AFGHANISTAN:
40:00 There is no question that Afghanistan is going to require international assistance in a host of different ways for quite some time. The level of assistance and what’s require will depend on how well Afghanistan is able to increase its revenue generation. Afghanistan does have extraordinary mineral wealth. It has some of the world’s remaining unexploited world class deposits of copper, iron ore, and some other fairly exotic minerals. And it has some limited natural gas.
The estimates of the worth of these deposits are quite substantial, but they need to develop an entire industry to extract it and build the infrastructure to get it to market, and security. China has already invested in one copper mine.
You can’t kill or capture your way out of an insurgency... civilian component is expanding substantially.
Yet another difference from Iraq, Afghanistan does not have excess infrastructure anywhere. Iraq to begin with had an extraordinary military infrastructure that Saddam built. Including palaces with fantastic force protection we could occupy, in part because they sat empty, they could go use]. When we did the surge in Iraq we were able to put 6,000 troops into Iraq every month. You can’t do that in Afghanistan. There’s not a Kuwait, no port. The airstrips you have are some of the busiest in the world.
59:17 It was his way of conveying two messages, one of resolve and also of urgency. 1:00:38 We need to get on with this. It’s a war we’ve been at for 8 years already, and we need to make the kind of progress that can enable the gradual transition of tasks to Afghan forces.
LS: What is success for you in Afghanistan, and can the mission be considered a success if you don’t capture or kill Osama Bin Laden?
1:01:03 Obviously he has a lot of iconic value, but the fact is he does not have a lot of day to day or even month to month activity. He’s not giving the directions, we’re not even sure he’s even giving the strategic guidance, that tends to come from his number 2. But he does indeed represent something very significant to the extremists movements throughout the world, and it would be something major if he were killed or captured, but there hasn’t been hard intelligence on him in years.
LS: Based on the evidence you have, what specifically is Iran doing today that is detrimental to the US mission in Iraq and Afghanistan?
1:02:05 Iran continues to fund, train, equip, and give some direction to the residual Shiite militias and extremists elements in Iraq. There have been daily attacks with the so-called signature weapons only made by Iran, the explosively formed projectile, forms of improvised explosive devices, certain rockets etc. All that in frankly a reduced number, because of course the level of violence has gone down by over 90% since the Spring of 2007.
1:03:29 Yes there have been horrific attacks, as we saw in Baghdad recently, carried out by Al Qaeda and Sunni extremists groups. But again the overall violence reduced and the capacity of Al Qaeda significantly reduced as well.
1:03:20 In Afghanistan Iran provides modest levels of equipment of explosives, perhaps funding to the Taliban and Western Afghanistan. It also uses so-called soft power to try to expand its influence as well. They don’t want the Taliban to necessarily succeed, they don’t want a Sunni extremist power controlling a country to the East, but they also don’t want us to succeed too easily either
1:04:00 There were various elements of cooperation that took place in the wake of the liberation of Afghanistan. It is conceivable that they want the same outcomes we want – an Afghanistan that is whole, that is not run by the Taliban again, and that is not run by other predominantly Sunni elements.
1:05:02 The consequences of a possible strike on Iran in some respects are incalculable. No one really knows what the outcome would be, no one knows how much damage could be done to Iran, how much that could set back the nuclear program. We don’t think that Iran wants to get into a fight with the United States. They know that their conventional capability is far lower than ours.
What they tend to do is carry out indirect forms of activity, to use proxy elements, and that kind of capability that they have developed over the years.
LS: Beyond Afghanistan, especially as some terrorist leaders are pushed out, what are the other countries you worry about as potential havens or operating bases for Al Qaeda? Might you have to pursue operations there?
1:10:00 We do have concern as to all of the countries throughout the region. The establishment in Yemen of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is a concern. There are tribal elements, discontent in some areas, a lack of basic services, and a very rugged terrain that Al Qaeda has found conducive to its activity in the border areas of Pakistan. That is of concern.
LS: An element of your strategy involves trying to bring over those who can be convinced to switch sides. How do you turn a Talibani? What keep them from switching back after we leave?
1:10:33 The lower to middle level Taliban members typically as part of that organization for a number of different reasons. They may have been intimidated by Taliban members encroaching into the area, their families might be threatened, they might be paid for what they’re doing, they might have little literally no other options of making money. So it’s a matter of addressing those reasons to get at the heart of why they’re in the Taliban. It might just be because they think the Taliban is winning, in some of these communities some of these members have survived for decades by being chameleons. 1:12:50 This is why there needs to be a reversal of the momentum of the Taliban, so that people have a sense that the Taliban does not have the initiative, but that the initiative is with the ISAF]
People have to realize there is a bigger incentive for being part of the solution rather than there is for remaining part of the problem.
If there’s a sense again that as we leave the Afghan security forces won’t be able sustain the security gains that have achieved, that Afghan government won’t be able to fulfil its obligations to the people, if they fear there won’t be impartial justice, then it may lead people to hedge their bets or to stay with the Taliban.